Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole

By Maya Schenwar

For federal prisoners, the prospect of early release expired
in 1987. As prisons bulge and recidivism persists, why is the
parole ban still in place?

In 1982, when George Martorano pled guilty to charges of
marijuana possession and drug conspiracy, he was expecting ten
years in prison, at most.

Today, after 24 years, Martorano holds the honor of longest-serving
nonviolent first-time offender in the history of the United States.
He's all too ready to forfeit that mark of distinction, but if
his sentence plays out as issued, he'll be looking at several
decades more: Martorano is serving a life sentence for three
years of transporting and selling marijuana. Despite his spotless
prison record -- not to mention his suicide-prevention volunteer
work, his yoga practice and the 20 books he's written while incarcerated
-- he has no hope of being released.

Martorano is just one of almost 200,000 inmates in federal
prison, many of whom have no chance for early release, thanks
to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which abolished parole
at the federal level. The toughening of prison legislation over
the past 20 years has also meant longer sentences for nonviolent
offenders, combining with the parole ban to prompt a sharp increase
in the federal prison population. As it stands, the beefed-up
federal prison system costs taxpayers $40,000 per year for every
inmate, and it costs inmates whole decades of their lives.

"We're being warehoused," Martorano said in a phone
interview. "It's taken a million dollars just to keep me
in."

Since the parole ban took effect, the federal prison population
has more than quadrupled, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.

In the past few years, the sentencing system has been slowly
changing in other ways. For example, the US Sentencing Commission recently shortened
its recommended sentences for crack cocaine offenses, and Congress
has shown signs that it will consider bills addressing the disparity
between penalties for crack and powder cocaine. The Supreme Court
is deliberating whether judges should be able to grant sentences
that dip below established guidelines for sentence lengths.

However, Congress has taken no steps toward reversing course
on federal parole. Although a bill to revive parole for federal
prisoners has been introduced repeatedly in the House over the
past few years, it has never made it to the floor for a vote.
And an official at the US Sentencing Commission, who asked not
to be identified, said he was not aware of any impetus that would
bring back parole anytime soon.

As the prison population continues to explode, many influential
voices in Congress and the public sphere are still touting a
hardline philosophy when it comes to criminal justice, according
to Representative Danny Davis (D-Illinois), who has sponsored
the federal parole reinstatement bill for the last two Congresses.

"People don't want to be characterized as being 'soft
on crime,'" Davis said in an interview. "They are still
afraid that characterization will follow them. You would think
that a country that is supposed to be as progressive as ours
would've recognized that this approach is not working."

Toward Sentencing "Truth"

In the 1980s, when the movement to abolish parole swept across
state sentencing systems and reached the federal government,
"tough on crime" was the mantra of the day. The federal
parole ban, part of a broad Sentencing Reform Act, which
also lengthened and standardized prison sentences, passed in
1984 and was enacted in 1987. It represented one step in a movement
toward "truth in sentencing": Abolishing parole was
intended to ensure that judges -- and the families of victims
-- would know how much time defendants would actually be serving.

"Truth in sentencing" eliminated the authority of
a third party, the Parole Board, which could substantially alter
a sentence after the judge was out of the picture. A paroled
prisoner might serve as little as one-sixth of his or her sentence.
After the ban, a prisoner could only earn "good time,"
a subtraction of no more than 54 days a year.

At the time it passed, the parole ban seemed something of
a panacea: It fulfilled the goals of not only the "tough
on crime" crowd, but also of a group of Democrats pushing
for "fairness in sentencing." They hoped the abolition
of parole, along with clarified guidelines for sentence lengths,
would help to overcome the justice system's glaring racial disparities
in sentences.

The act passed, garnering little attention. No public hearings
were held before it was debated.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served on the US
Sentencing Commission prior to his court appointment and, before
that, participated in the shaping of the 1984 law, described
the act as promoting "greater honesty in sentencing."

"Under previous law the Parole Commission determined
(within broad limits) how much time an offender would actually
serve," Breyer said in a speech at the University of Nebraska
College of Law in 1998, of the thought process that went into
the crafting of the legislation. "A judge might sentence
an offender to 12 years, but the Parole Commission might release
the offender after four. No one -- not offender, judge or public
-- could say in advance what a 12-year sentence really meant."

Without parole, Breyer explained, he and the other crafters
had hoped the sentencing system would be "transparent, more
candid, than before."

However, when the new guidelines were enforced, some began
to question whether the power to discriminate was simply being
shifted from the Parole Commission to the prosecutors, according
to Nora Callahan, executive director of the November Coalition, a nonprofit organization
working for drug sentencing reform.

The prisoners getting the longest sentences, Callahan said,
were not necessarily the ones who had committed the most egregious
crimes. They were often the ones who didn't know much about judicial
system, since they had less money, less education and less access
to legal aid.

Take Danielle Metz, a nonviolent first offender
and mother of two, who was sentenced to three life sentences
plus 20 years for helping her husband distribute cocaine. She
pled innocent despite evidence of her guilt. Later, she discovered
her public defender was primarily a traffic lawyer.

"When you lack knowledge of the law, they can do whatever
they want to you," Metz said in a phone interview. "No
one explained to me what was going on until it was too late."

Soon, thousands of cases like Metz's were cropping up: nonviolent
first offenders sentenced to life in prison, without a hope of
early release.

Another such prisoner, David Correa, who was incarcerated 18 years
ago for transporting 495 grams of powder cocaine, pointed to
the way the strict-guideline sentencing system can still trip
up defendants in court, depending on which aspects of their crimes
are highlighted and which legal moves they choose.

"Because I really had nothing to offer the prosecutor,
because I took my case to trial, because in order for me to take
a plea deal I had to say I was guilty of gun charges that I never
had, and because I had to give names that I didn't have either,
I am now doing a life sentence," Correa wrote in a letter
to me.

Parole Forgotten

Once the parole ban was in place, though, it did not budge.
Most people -- outside of prisoners and their families -- had
no idea it had happened, noted parole activist John Flahive,
who was first clued in when he accidentally received a wrong-number
call from a prisoner: George Martorano.

The two began chatting on a regular basis, and Flahive began
to lobby in Washington to bring back parole.

"As I got more involved, I found out there were thousands
like Georgie," Flahive said, noting that about 60 percent
of federal inmates are currently incarcerated for nonviolent
crimes.

In 2002, the first bill to revive parole, introduced by Rep.
Patsy Mink, made its way to the House -- and died in committee
when Mink died of chicken pox and pneumonia. Since then, Davis
has proposed the bill twice. Both times, it died in the Judiciary
Committee, then headed by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, who has consistently
voted to toughen sentences, maintain the death penalty and reduce
opportunities for appeals.

With a Democratic majority now in Congress, parole advocates
hope for a victory sometime soon. However, a restoration of parole
in the near future would be surprising, according to Mark Bransky
of the Federal Parole Board, which remains in operation for prisoners
sentenced prior to 1987, some of whom are still eligible for
parole.

"Things tend to go in cycles, so I'm not sure,"
Bransky said. "But for now, there doesn't seem to be much
unhappiness in Congress with the new system."

Jeralyn Merritt, a Denver criminal defense attorney and drug
law analyst, concurred, adding that lobbying for an increase
in "good time" might be the only route for earlier
release.

"Federal parole won't be instated as long as we have
these guidelines," Merritt said. "They're not looking
at changing these guidelines."

However, unlike in the Reagan era, the parole ban is not riding
on the wave of "tough on crime" fever. Public sentiment
has softened to a certain extent, and, according to Callahan,
most of the liberal advocates of parole abolition have long since
changed their stance.

In a 2003 Dan Jones survey in Utah, widely held to be the
most conservative state in the nation, almost two-thirds of respondents
favored the return of parole -- once they were informed it had
been banned.

"It's something a lot of people don't think about until
it personally touches them," Davis said.

Parole may not be a highly contentious issue; it's just an
invisible one.

No More Carrots

Despite lawmakers' original rationale of the parole ban as
a "tough on crime" measure, it has hit the lives of
nonviolent offenders much harder than it has hit crime, according
to Callahan. Although prisoners now do more time, she said, without
a tangible motivation to "do good," they may actually
be less likely to change their ways.

"In 1987, all the incentives for corrections to work
in a rehabilitative way were taken away," Callahan said.
"This affects violent crime, because so many people are
getting out with nothing but bitterness."

According to FBI statistics, violent crime increased steadily
in the five years after the parole ban was established.

Callahan also links prisoners' decreased motivation to rehabilitate
to recidivism.

One element of the logic behind the parole ban was "many
prisoners released on parole were committing new crimes,"
Bransky said.

Yet ex-prisoners were significantly more likely to be rearrested
in 1994 than in 1983, according to the Federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics.

Since 1987, the atmosphere within prison walls has changed,
too, according to Martorano, who has witnessed life in multiple
federal prisons firsthand since the parole ban kicked in.

"The institutions were much less violent [before 1987],
because there was a light," he said. "If you've got
ten life sentences, with no chance of parole, there's no carrot."

Lack of parole also makes life tougher for prison guards,
according to Alan J. Williams, a former prisoner who is now chair
of the Delaware branch of the advocacy organization, Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants,
Federal Prison Chapter (FedCURE). Without the incentive of
getting out on good behavior, there's no substantive reason to
treat guards well. Additionally, no chance of early release breeds
anger toward the prison system, which often takes the form of
violence, according to Williams.

Williams also pointed to the frustration-provoking divide
between prisoners sentenced prior to 1987, many of whom still
eligible for parole, and prisoners sentenced after the ban kicked
in -- a rift that triggers fights among inmates.

"We've been going about this the wrong way, emphasizing
incarceration rather than rehabilitation," Davis said. "We're
not reducing crime or recidivism. Since that's not the case,
why do we continue to follow a flawed policy?"

Parole and Electoral Reality

Although some '80s-style tough-on-crime Congress members remain,
the persistence of the parole ban may have less to do with hard-line
philosophy and more to do with political priorities, according
to Callahan. Between federal prisoners, ex-federal prisoners
and their families and friends, millions of Americans are seriously
impacted by federal prison policy. However, those millions are,
by in large, not policymakers.

"The 'war on crime' is just as insidious as the war in
Iraq," Callahan said. "But a war like this is different
from an Iraq War. The middle class doesn't see this war."

Not many prisoner advocates were surprised the last two bills
to revive federal parole never made it out of committee. Sensenbrenner
chaired the Judiciary Committee, which was also stocked with
such stalwarts as Randy Forbes, who led the successful movement
to abolish parole in his home state of Virginia in the 1990s.
Both still hold places on the committee, with Forbes as its ranking
member.

When a Democratic majority won Congress last year, the shift
did not prompt a face-off with tough-on-crime Republicans.

The issue doesn't always break down in line with the party
divide, according to policy analyst Ryan King of the Sentencing Project. Just as the original
Sentencing Reform Act was a bipartisan venture, the maintenance
of the sentencing status quo requires the consent -- at least
implicitly -- of members of both parties.

Lawmakers have to pick their battles, and picking parole is
not a politically savvy move.

"I've never seen anyone lose an election for being tough
on crime," King said. "You might see a candidate say
they would overturn every parole board decision in the state.
But I doubt a candidate would set sentencing reform as the centerpiece
of a campaign. No candidate wants the public to think they would
let individuals off easy."

Shying away from sentencing and parole reform basically boils
down to fear, on the part of both the public and politicians,
according to King. People are afraid of early-released prisoners
wreaking havoc on their communities. Lawmakers are afraid that,
should they push for reform, a high-profile case of a parolee
committing a crime could sabotage their campaigns.

The fear is grounded in precedent: 1998 Democratic presidential
candidate and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis supported
his state's "furlough" program, which allowed inmates
temporary leaves of absence from prison as part of a rehabilitation
plan. When Massachusetts prisoner Willie Horton committed armed
robbery and rape while on furlough, the incident became a major
issue in the 1988 election and a basis for attack ads against
Dukakis.

In Connecticut last July, two parolees committed a triple
murder and arson. In September, Connecticut's attorney general
ruled that parole-ineligible sentences could not be commuted
to parole-eligible, and a Quinnipiac University poll in early
November showed 72 percent of Connecticut voters thought the
parole system let prisoners out too soon.

"It's a cost-benefit analysis," King said. "There's
not a lot of benefit for those politicians to step out and support
parole, but the costs could be enormous."

As with many prison issues, convincing lawmakers to take a
stand on parole is an especially tough sell because many of the
people to whom parole is most important -- prisoners and felons
-- can't vote.

Money Motives

Many Americans who can vote benefit from prisoners staying
behind bars with no chance of early release, noted both Martorano
and Metz.

Though keeping millions of people in prison is a drain on
taxpayer dollars, inmates bolster the economy by working for
less than $1 an hour for companies like Microsoft and AT&T.
("Most of the time when people call directory assistance,
they don't realize they're speaking with an inmate," Metz
said.)

Noah Robinson, the half-brother of Congressman Jesse Jackson
and a federal prisoner serving a life sentence in Terre Haute,
Indiana, points out as private prisons expand, a growing sector
of the small-town vote will have the preservation of the parole
ban at heart. The local economies of "prison towns"
benefit from the lack of parole, since a guaranteed (and increasing)
number of prisoners means a constant source of jobs for guards,
administrators, food service workers, cleaning people and suppliers
of everything from toilet paper to office supplies.

"With prisoners confined forever (i.e. no parole), job
security [is] totally unaffected by inflation and recession;
contracts for local businesses are ongoing," Robinson wrote
to me.

Even more directly, some of the lawmakers who could most influence
the prospect of the parole bill -- Judiciary Committee members
-- take campaign money from corporations that build and maintain
private prisons.

The two largest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation
of America (CCA) and Wackenhut Corporation (now the GEO Group),
entered the business in the mid-80s, when, due to tougher drug
laws and the loss of parole, government-run prisons were bursting
at the seams. The corporations' expansion paralleled the continued
Congressional reinforcement of hard-line prison policies.

According to the Center
for Responsive Politics, in the 2006 election cycle, the
CCA contributed thousands of dollars to the campaigns of six
House Judiciary Committee members, including Sensenbrenner, who
kept the parole bill off the floor every time it was proposed.
He now sits on the Homeland Security subcommittee, which deals
most closely with sentencing and parole.

Sensenbrenner's office did not return repeated calls for comment.

The CCA also funded the campaign of ranking member Lamar Smith,
who, in this Congress alone, has introduced two bills which would
increase prison terms.

In the Senate, the CCA financed the campaigns of four out
of the nine Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.

Wackenhut, on the other hand, developed a reputation for giving
to both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican
National Committee. Its new incarnation, the GEO Group, also
contributes to both parties. In fact, for the 2008 election,
GEO has so far contributed more to the campaigns of Democratic
legislators than to Republicans, and has donated to the campaigns
of both Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson.

Even Democratic Congressman Bill Nelson of Florida, to whom
both John Flahive and David Correa's mother have appealed for
help in reviving parole, took $10,000 from GEO in 2006, according
to data from Capitol Advantage.

"Financial drive is such a huge factor for both sides
of political aisle," said King, who noted economic pressure
from prison employees' unions plays a large role in pulling Democrats
away from parole and sentencing reform.

The American Federation of Government Employees, to which
federal prison workers belong, gives almost exclusively to Democratic
candidates.

Nevertheless, according to King, prisons are at a breaking
point. Contractors and government funding aren't keeping up with
the demand for new prison facilities, and overcrowding is rampant.
For policymakers, King said, dwindling resources and their effect
on profit -- not a realization of the system's injustices and
ineffectiveness -- will likely be the turning point for parole
and sentencing reform.

Though King does not foresee a vote to reinstate parole right
away, he argues measures like Davis's parole bill are still necessary
to put the idea "on the radar screen," triggering momentum
toward sentencing policy change. As resources become scarcer,
he reasons, more lawmakers may get behind such legislation.

As for Davis, he has been cooperating with FedCURE and other
organizations on a new bill to revive parole. He hasn't yet introduced
it, he said, because he did not want people to confuse it with
his less controversial Second Chance Act, a bipartisan-supported
bill that just passed the House, which provides resources for
prisoners reentering society.

The passage of the Second Chance Act may begin to pave
the slow road to a criminal justice system that emphasizes rehabilitation
over punishment, according to Davis. He hopes someday parole
will follow.

Until then, for prisoners like Metz, it's becoming increasingly
difficult to fight off despair.

"My kids grew up while I was in prison, but I've been
stuck in time," Metz said. "If they don't bring back
parole, I'll be stuck until I die."

Maya Schenwar is a reporter for Truthout.

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